nough to rescue. It was nearly two
o'clock in the afternoon when we shoved off.

It took us but a few minutes to reach the river entrance, passing
through which we presently found ourselves in a broad, lagoon-like
expanse of water, some two miles long by about a mile wide, dotted here
and there with small, tree-clad islands, some of which might have been
as much as ten or twelve acres in extent, while others were mere heaps
of mud just large enough to support a clump of half a dozen or so of
coconut trees and a tiny thicket of bamboo. The greater part of this
lagoon was evidently very shallow, for dotted about here and there were
to be seen partially submerged trunks of trees and other debris that
appeared to have been swept down into their present position by some
bygone flood, and had ultimately grounded on the mud; but there was just
sufficient current and wind to reveal a deep-water channel of about two
hundred yards wide, running in a fairly straight line through the lagoon
toward its most distant extremity. There were numerous objects dotted
about the surface of the lagoon, which, at a distance, had all the
appearance of floating logs, but which, when we drew near to them,
proved to be, in almost every instance, the heads of basking alligators.
And before we had been in the river ten minutes we were startled by a
huge black bulk breaking water close alongside the boat, which turned
out to be a hippopotamus.

"Now, Higgins," said I, "whereabout is this creek of yours? I see no
sign of it thus far."

"Oh, it's some way on ahead yet, sir!" answered the man. "Keep her
straight up through the deep-water, sir, please. I'll tell you when we
comes in sight of it."

That the unfortunate mutineers had penetrated some distance into the
country soon became evident, for we traversed the entire length of the
lagoon and fully a mile of the river after it had narrowed down to about
a quarter of a mile in width ere we sighted a break of any kind in the
thick entanglement of mangrove trees that lined the margin of the
stream. But even this, so Higgins informed us, was not the creek of
which we were in search, and which he believed lay nearly a mile farther
up the stream. Of the one actually in sight he denied any knowledge,
and I soon became convinced that it had escaped the notice of the
mutineers.

The break in question was on the northern bank of the river--that is to
say, on the same side as the creek of which we